William A. Cook
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

“Hell is where many false commitments must be unlearned.” ~ Ricardo J. Quinones, "Dante Alighieri"

Richard Goldstone’s journey from Justice to Sinner represents the spiritual act of dying in the Zionist world. By recanting his own report he has attempted to break the bonds that cast him into the sufferings in Caina, Antenora, and Judecca where, in Dante’s Inferno, those treacherous to their own, are removed from the light and warmth of their kin, their country, and their masters and suffer eternal damnation in the remorseless dead center of the ice in the most bottomless circle of Hell. Fortunately, Goldstone like Dante can learn that he has, in his journey, aligned himself with many false gods and many false attachments ignoring on the way the elementary truths that bind humankind ineluctably in one race in a bond of human grace.

The Zionist world needs no Hell since it heeds no conscience. It exists on one foundation, a solid block of ice that freezes the soul of all who bear allegiance to its creed of absolute obedience, an ancient form of tribal slavery bound by fear that shackles the soul, by isolation that instills despair, by humiliation that corrodes self, and by victimhood that bonds the tribe in self-perpetuating agony. It is in this sense Medieval, a remnant of the inquisitorial mind that harbored no dissent, gave no credence to personal freedom, and obligated all to one monolithic understanding of commitment to the powers that control.

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Ilan Pappé

Richard Goldstone in the Gaza Strip, June 2009. (UN Photo)

"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document." Thus opens Judge Richard Goldstone's much-discussed op-ed in the Washington Post. I have a strong feeling that the editor might have tampered with the text and that the original sentence ought to have read something like: "If I had known then that the report would turn me into a self-hating Jew in the eyes of my beloved Israel and my own Jewish community in South Africa, the Goldstone report would never have been written at all." And if that wasn't the original sentence, it is certainly the subtext of Goldstone's article.

This shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination against the judge, a campaign whose like in the past destroyed mighty people such as US Senator William Fulbright who was shot down politically for his brave attempt to disclose AIPAC's illegal dealings with the State of Israel.

Already In October 2009, Goldstone told CNN, "I've got a great love for Israel" and "I've worked for many Israeli causes and continue to do so" (Video: "Fareed Zakaria GPS," 4 October 2009).

Given the fact that at the time he made this declaration of love he did not have any new evidence, as he claims now, one may wonder how could this love could not be at least weakened by what he discovered when writing, along with other members of the UN commission, his original report.

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Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

In a recent article, notorious Zionist Alan Dershowitz reveals the scale of rejection he faced on his recent visit to Norway:

Ahead of his visit to the country, Dershowitz’ lectures were offered (without any charge) at the three leading Norwegian universities. These universities, who on earlier occasions had been happy to host Harvard Scholar Stephen Walt and Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, clearly said ‘no’ to Dershowitz.

The Dean of the Law Faculty at Bergen University told Dershowitz that he would be honoured to have him present a lecture on the O.J. Simpson case -- as long as he was willing to promise not to mention Israel.

I guess that the message was clear -- while the Dean of the Law Faculty thought that his students may benefit from learning about the legal advocacy of a ‘single murder suspect’ -- he probably could not see any academic justification in educating them about the possible defense of a ‘murderous collective’ i.e. the Jewish State.

An administrator at the Trondheim school said that Israel was too ‘controversial.’ That is surely the most polite way possible to refer to a racist expansionist terrorist state -- The University of Oslo simply said "no" without offering any excuse.

But then the shekel dropped: “It was then”, writes Dershowitz, “that I realized why all this happened. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact academic and cultural boycotts of Jewish Israeli academics.”

Did I miss something here? Dershowitz is not exactly even an Israeli -- he is, actually, an American Jew – so why should he regard himself as a ‘victim’ of the academic and cultural boycotts of ‘Jewish Israeli academics’?

I guess though, that Dershowitz grasps the inevitable truth here: the boycott against Israel is ethically driven -- It obviously identifies Dershowitz and other Jewish lobbyists as an extension of the Israeli crime, and vice versa.

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Silvia Cattori
Silvia Cattori's Blog

Gilad Atzmon is an outstandingly charming man. He is often described by music critics as one of the finest contemporary jazz saxophonists. But Atzmon is more than just a musician: for those who follow events in the Middle East, he is considered to be one of the most credible voices amongst Israeli opponents. In the last decade he has relentlessly exposed and denounced barbarian Israeli policies. Just before his departure on a European Spring Tour, “The Tide Has Changed“, with his band the Orient House Ensemble, he spoke to Silvia Cattori.

Silvia Cattori: As a jazz musician, what brought you to use your pen as a weapon against the country where you were born and against your people?

Gilad Atzmon: For many years my music and writings were not integrated at all. I became a musician when I was seventeen and I took it up as a profession when I was twenty four. Though I was not involved with, or interested in politics when I lived in Israel, I was very much against Israel’s imperial wars. I identified somehow with the left, but later, when I started to grasp what the Israeli left was all about, I could not find myself in agreement with anything it claimed to believe in, and that is when I realised the crime that was taking place in Palestine.

For me the Oslo Accord was the end of it because I realised that Israel was not aiming towards reconciliation, or even integration in the region, and that it completely dismissed the Palestinian cause. I understood then that I had to leave Israel. It wasn’t even a political decision — I just didn’t want to be part of the Israeli crime anymore. In 1994 I moved to the UK and I studied philosophy.

In 2001, at the time of the second Intifada, I began to understand that Israel was the ultimate aggressor and was also the biggest threat to world peace. I realised the extent of the involvement and the role of world Jewry as I analysed the relationships between Israel and the Jewish State, between Israel and the Jewish people around the world, and between Jews and Jewishness.

I then realised that the Jewish “left” was not very different at all from the Israeli “left”. I should make it clear here that I differentiate between “Left ideology”— a concept that is inspired by universal ethics and a genuine vision of equality – and the “Jewish Left”, a tendency or grouping that is there solely to maintain tribal interests that have very little, if anything, to do with universalism, tolerance and equality.

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Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:

Three months ago, I briefly participated in a Palestinian solidarity conference in Stuttgart. The event was dedicated to the 'One State Solution'. As it happened, I was touring in Germany at the time, and thus accepted an invitation by the organiser to say a few words.

Being primarily an artist, rather than a politician or an activist, I am committed to truth and beauty rather than a party-line or any given ideological doctrine. Yet, without my intending to do so, and in just a few sentences – I managed to cross every possible ‘red line’, and I bought myself a few more enemies.

In my speech, I said that as much as ‘universalism’ is a beautiful idea, it is incompatible with Jewish culture, since Jewish culture is tribally oriented. I also told the German Palestinian supporters that as much as ‘peace’ is a beautiful concept, associated as it is with harmony and reconciliation, Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is actually interpreted by Israelis as ‘security for the Jews’.

I thought that the supporters of the ‘One State Solution’ should be aware of the complexities that lie ahead.

I also managed to infuriate some, by suggesting that I was against the comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. Indeed, I believe that from certain ideological perspective, Israel is actually far worse than Nazi Germany, for unlike Nazi Germany, Israel is a democracy and that implies that Israeli citizens are complicit in Israeli atrocities.

Needless to say, a few of the attendants of the conference were angry with me. Such ideas are hardly expressed on German soil. Some of the Jewish activists, and at least one Marxist, demanded that I should be removed from the protocol.

I was obviously sad about it -- I believed that those who advocated the ‘One State solution’ should be able to support intellectual pluralism -- But it turns out that a few of those who promote democracy in Palestine would be better advised to first confront their own Stalinist tendencies.

Later, I learned that one legendary German Jewish activist and speaker at the conference stood by me. Evelyn Hecht-Galinski firmly announced that if I was to be removed from the protocol, then she also wanted to be removed. She argued in my defense that I was telling the truth about both Jewish and Israeli culture.

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Ilan Pappé
Patrick Mac Manus Blog

The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are bad, very bad. Educated Arabs — not all of them dressed as “Islamists,” quite a few of them speaking perfect English whose wish for democracy is articulated without resorting to “anti-Western” rhetoric — are bad for Israel.

Arab armies that do not shoot at these demonstrators are as bad as are many other images that moved and enthused so many people around the world, even in the West. This world reaction is also bad, very bad. It makes the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and its apartheid policies inside the state look like the acts of a typical “Arab” regime.

For a while you could not tell what official Israel thought. In his first ever commonsensical message to his colleagues, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers, generals and politicians not to comment in public on the events in Egypt. For a brief moment one thought that Israel turned from the neighborhood’s thug to what it always was: a visitor or permanent resident.

It seems Netanyahu was particularly embarrassed by the unfortunate remarks on the situation uttered publicly by General Aviv Kochavi, the head of Israeli military intelligence. This top Israeli expert on Arab affairs stated confidently two weeks ago in the Knesset that the Mubarak regime is as solid and resilient as ever. But Netanyahu could not keep his mouth shut for that long. And when the boss talked all the others followed. And when they all responded, their commentary made Fox News’ commentators look like a bunch of peaceniks and free-loving hippies from the 1960s.

The gist of the Israeli narrative is simple: this is an Iranian-like revolution helped by Al Jazeera and stupidly allowed by US President Barack Obama, who is a new Jimmy Carter, and a stupefied world. Spearheading the Israeli interpretation are the former Israeli ambassadors to Egypt. All their frustration from being locked in an apartment in a Cairean high-rise is now erupting like an unstoppable volcano. Their tirade can be summarized in the words of one of them, Zvi Mazael who told Israeli television’s Channel One on 28 January, “this is bad for the Jews; very bad.”

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Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

I have spent the last ten years elaborating on Jewish national ideology and tribal politics. During my journey of grasping what Zionism and Israel stand for, I came to realize that it is actually the Jewish left -- and Jewish Marxists in particular -- that provide us with an adequate glimpse into contemporary Jewish identity, tribal supremacy, marginal politics and tribalism.

‘Jewish left’ is basically an oxymoron. It is a contradiction in terms, because ‘Jewishness’ is a tribal ideology, whilst ‘the left’ are traditionally understood as aspiring to universalism.

On the face of it, the ‘Jewish left’ is, at least categorically, no different from Israel or Zionism: after all, it is an attempt to form yet another ‘Jews only political club’. And as far as the Palestinian solidarity movement is concerned, its role is subject to a growing debate -- For on the one hand, one can see the political benefit of pointing at a very few ‘good Jews’, and emphasizing that there are Jews who ‘oppose Zionism as Jews’. Yet on the other hand, however, accepting the legitimacy of such a racially orientated political affair, is in itself, an acceptance of yet another form, or manifestation of Zionism, for Zionism claims that Jews are primarily Jewish, and had better operate politically as Jews[1].

To a certain extent then, it is clear that Jewish anti Zionism, is, in itself, still just another form of Zionism.

‘Jewish dissidence’ has two main roles: First, it attempts to depict and bolster a positive image of Jews in general [2]. Second, it is there to silence and obscure any attempts on the part of the outsider to grasp the meaning of Jewish identity and Jewish politics within the machinations of the Jewish state. It is also there to stop elements in this movement from elaborating on the crucial role of Jewish lobbying.

The Jewish Left is there then, to mute any possible criticism of Jewish politics within the wider Left movements. It is there to stop the Goyim from looking into Jewish affairs.

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PeoplesGeography
The People's Voice

Cited in a recent Ha’aretz piece about the decline of the israeli left, the late academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz is described as remarking that he is not sure whether Israel’s policies since 1967 are evil stupidity or stupidly evil. In another, verbatim citation, Leibowitz is quoted as having said, more resolutely, in 1990: “Everything Israel has done, and I emphasize everything, in the past 23 years is either evil stupidity or stupidly evil.“

Along with a number of other academics such as Ilan Pappe and Neve Gordon, journalists such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, and other critics of conscience such as David Grossman, it is good to see instances of intellectuals fulfilling their proper role of speaking up. In Liebowitz’s case, he is not as well known outside Israel. In 1969 he reportedly began describing the “inevitable Nazification” of Israeli society. Further, by the time of the (first major, 1982) Lebanon War, he became known for using the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Israeli army. He also called for soldiers to refuse to serve in the IOF.

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Jews For Justice in the Middle East / If Americans Knew

[PART I]

Zionism and the Holocaust

The U.N. decisions to partition Palestine and then to grant admission to the state of Israel were made, on one level, as an emotional response to the horrors of the Holocaust, Under more normal circumstances, the compelling claims to sovereignty of the Arab majority would have prevailed. This reaction of guilt on the part of the Western allies was understandable, but that doesn’t mean the Palestinians should have to pay for crimes committed by others—a classic example of two wrongs not making a right.

The Holocaust is often used as the final argument in favor of Zionism, but is this connection justified? There are several aspects to consider in answering that question honestly. First, we will examine the historical record of what the Zionist movement actually did to help save European Jewry from the Nazis.

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Jews For Justice in the Middle East / If Americans Knew

[PART II] As the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that, even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position, however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent crimes — on both sides — inevitably follow from this original injustice.

This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this process occurred and what a moral solution to the region’s problems should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East, Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other side of the historical record.

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